them and bowman reacting last hour on this program to the admission from bill cosby and the released testimony of a 2005 lawsuit showing bill cosby first time admitting he acquired prescription quaaludes to give to women he intended to have sex with. the lawsuit was brought by one of dozens of women who have claimed cosby drugged and sexually assaulted them. it was dismissed and then settled at a later time. cosby representatives said they ll release a statement tomorrow. he maintains his innocence and never criminally charged. some cosby defenders holding out jum for now. here s former cosby show actress raven simone talking about it on the view. he gave me my first job but at the same time you know, you need the proof. and then i ll be able to give my judgment here or there. all right. you need the proof. francis joining us with a look
are outraged oh, the cops shouldn t have shot him. what the hell was he doing with the pound cake in his hand? so again, the attorneys saying they didn t want it out. the judge saying he had a feel that he had to release it. and now we will continue to try and wait and see what his attorneys have to say now that this document has been revealed. we look at the timeline there. 2004 the pound cake speech was given. this is all falling into that same timeline of when the lawsuit was finally settled, in 05. when the testimony was given. thanks so much poop we re. we re going to bring in the legal affairs reporter who broke the story last night. we re asking our pulse viewers today the question do these new revelations change your opinion of bill cosby? we want to encourage people to go to pulse.msnbc.com to weigh in because based on the conversation we re ability to have it might influence a lot of people s opinions. how were you able with the a.p. to get these documents?
empower just one other of the jane does who were part of her suit. so my whole ambition was to empower someone, anyone, to come forward and tell their story. and so i did that. but it s been long it s been hard, it s an arduous and taken a lot of energy to do so but well worth it because i knew this day would come. i didn t know when it would come. i didn t know how. i just knew that some day, some way, you know the wall would be broken down and we would have opportunities to really let the world see the truth and then march on and continue to advocate for sexual crime and violence and to make powerful wealthy celebrity people accountable for their actions. barbara, a lot of people might not know the back story as you being one of the first accusers to come out and speak publicly about what you went through with bill cosby. but you looked at him as someone
23% saying no. so keep those votes coming. pulse.msnbc.com. thanks so much. i appreciate it. joining us now is chief legal correspondent, host of the cycle. ari melber. this is a portion of the judge s decision of why he released what was sealed testimony. he said to the extent that the defendant freely entered the public square and thrust himself in the vortex of the issues he narrowed the zone of privacy he is entitled to claim. what is the judge saying there about bill cosby? because of his celebrity? close. i mean what you have in this area typically is that public persons, public officials, especially being a primary example, aren t entitled to the same privacy. a private person in a settlement never see the documents in the light of day. this is unusual because the associated press sued twice to get them and the judge is saying, yeah you don t have the same privacy. a person on twitter said
in america, you actually were innocent until proven guilty. he has not been proven barbara bowman has accused bill cosby of sexual assault. she s a paid ambassador promotes sexual violence awareness and victim empowerment. barbara, it s good to have you with me. what is this newly released testimony and information mean to someone like you who claims to be a survivor of sexual abuse at the hands of cosby? it s it s quite vindication, thomas. thank you for having me on. you know it was a very long long lonely dark road as i screamed my story out and really all i was interested in doing in the very beginning was supporting andrea constand in 2005 because i believed her, because it had happened to me. and then when we got this fire storm going last fall in the media caught hold of it was to